Child of Lies
by Raynidreams
Summary: An AU ficlet set aboard the Colony. Ellen, Leoben, Six, Daniel.


The two of them followed the instincts of their bodies and the vague implanted images in their heads. It was tender and uncomfortable at first but soon after it blossomed into a gentle devotion. They kept their touches to themselves, not out of deliberate deception, not out of shame or fear, but because it was a love that was theirs and theirs alone – one not owned by their twin brothers and sisters. And it was a secret that remained with them until her belly started to swell and Mother Ellen saw her daughter Six and knew. Two and Six watched her expression. How she was aghast at first, then how this horror fought with an inner delight that soon the Colony would be a place for a _real child_ to be born. The Two heard these words in his head, but with his mind caught up lovingly at the changing shape of Six, he did not ponder over their meaning. He absently repeated them to John as he stood at the panel, his mind fascinated with the shape and feel of his unborn child within the stream as the Six lay by his side. John's face went blank like his mind and the Two didn't read anything from him.

The Six's belly grew while Mother Ellen watched her children. She was filled with concern and then delight again as another joy was brought to them when the Eights who had been planned before the baby, took their first steps. In greeting the Eights, the first called Sharon, she really saw how young all her children were and worried for them. When the baby was born, she sat next to her daughter Six as she was coated in sweat and blood and achievement. Mother Ellen suggested that perhaps the boy should be raised by her and Father Saul. That Daniel—the name they'd all chosen—needed to be cared for by a mother who knew how. Six didn't understand. She knew love. She knew it in the form of touch and the emotion which grew within her each day. Her mother stroked her brow and held her son's hand. She told them how they were new themselves and that Daniel would need more care then they could give. They could see him every day, but it was best if she took over. Mother Ellen picked up the silent Daniel and crooned over him. Six felt lost. Her breasts ached for his mouth and her stomach for his softness. Two was also unsure. He felt he could teach his baby about the stars as Six feed and bathed him. Mother Ellen calmed them and said that she loved them all.

In the days that followed, Father Sam showed his upset at her actions. He argued that the world they'd created was for their children to grow in, and how now it was also their childrens' child's home. One for him to be nurtured in by them, not the Five. That this is how they would learn, by experience. Mother Tory added that Mother Ellen should have expected this challenge would arrise. Father Galen to suggest that they must go beyond it and work not only on the ongoing programming of their current children, but also on the creation of a body for the boy when he was older, otherwise he would not resurrect. It was Father Saul who had the last word. He made them all listen when he made it clear that whatever they chose to do, they must show solidarity. They could not have any divisions. They all agreed on this. No one asked what the models thought. No one sought John who spent most of his time with the first Eight. The last model whose base programming hadn't been totally finished due to the interruption of Daniel's birth. They failed to perceive how John had been wounded to hear he was not a 'real child'. A wound that got infected and spilled out when he found he could finish Eight by himself and what this could mean when considering the other models.

Years passed and Daniel grew. But he was different. Not programmed, he saw much, understood more but couldn't seem to voice things in the way the models did. He chose to paint the world he saw instead. The blocks of colours and circles represented more to him than letters and words. Each shade had a feeling and each line a path. He painted in circles and patterns, ones that mapped the stars like his father Two eventually got to show him in the stream. He painted the outline of a girl who he would love like his father did his mother and his mother did back. At night he would touch his paintings and they would feel alive. As he stoked her, tracing the cracks in the layers of his paint, he imagined a new place where they would be together. It made him cry quietly.

He continued to grow in body, but too quickly. Daniel remained very much a child in mind despite his teenager's form. He didn't like to admit it, but part of him was shaken and scared to grow because of the undercurrents of animosity that swarmed around his gentleness. Unspoken hostilities which he sensed to be lurking beneath the surface just like the bare walls did the cracks in his pictures. The Colony seemed to be falling apart around them, but he felt like he was the only one who saw it. He began to perceive how there were too few grown-ups there who fully comprehended what they were doing, and far too many youngsters who looked to them to show them the way. He didn't know what to do change it, so he painted and dreamed of being somewhere else with the girl he drew.

A morning came when Fathers' Sam and Galen decided to show all the models how that Daniel was now like them too. That he didn't have to die and would be able to resurrect. Lines of adolescent empty Daniels stood in tanks before them. Daniel was bewildered. He didn't wish to be like this forever. He'd always seen himself looking like his father one day. Like the Two who held him as he stood silently amidst the arguments that swelled around them like the tide. He didn't like seeing the bodies, so he closed himself off and went back to his pictures of fire and his hand in the girl's as they rose from out of it. Father Sam saw how his face had crumbled at the tanks and then once again later on after an argument had resulted in a Three slapping a One. He went after him to reassure him that it was nothing to fear, but even as he said so, Father Sam looked worried. They all did but about the wrong things. They were becoming unsure if resurrection was right for him because of his continued muteness and his inability to connect with them fully. They loved him, all of them did, completely and sincerely, but still they began to question whether he should take the path of resurrection once his birth body had died. He was so unhappy here. Would he ever grow out of it? Find love? His difference and problems lingered within the backs of their minds like dark whispers.

The boy wasn't sure how to tell them, but he didn't worry about this. He worried because his uncle was now always watching him with a sour expression. Daniel seeing deeper than them. He drew them all pictures of how maybe they should all leave here and go to the humans. How he wanted to go. For as his body was changing, he now knew that the girl he saw was among them. He took his father's hand and pointed to the nearest large star and then to both their hearts. His father was confused and so asked his own father. Father Sam sighed when he understood that it meant Daniel wanted to leave. Father Sam to tell the others. Mother Ellen to wonder if this was his purpose. To join them with the humans. The centurions watched without comment. John to feel his resentment grow beyond containment.

He, and his brother Ones reprogrammed the centurions to shoot Daniel. Then the first John had their parents surrounded. More rounded up their siblings. Daniel was sent violently into the stream as John gloated over what he'd done. As he showed his parents the boy's dead body. In the hub, Daniel awoke alone. He fell from the tank, and dazed, stumbled to the nearest sentience he could find. The Hybrid spoke to him in riddles but he understood her words. He went to the Raider, the bird ready to sacrifice itself as it comprehended in its own way what was happening. It didn't tell the boy, but after they'd landed, it set itself to destruct, hoping that God would forgive it its suicide. The blast sent to boy flying. He banged his head. And when he awoke, it was to no memory and no words. The trauma too much to bear. Shirtless he stumbled out across the desert to the highway lined with palm trees. The men of this world to find him. He considered running, but somehow he knew this was the right path. It would take him to where he needed to be. To her. To a home.

He found her and for a time found peace. For a time. Until he resurrected again—another painful and awful death—but no longer having any of his own flesh, it flowed into the nearest match. The flesh of his father. He gasped and slid from the tank. Once again his memories buried. For now. Until he saw the girl again.


End file.
